Rain delays German wheat crop, damage worry grows

Repeated rainfall has hindered Germany's wheat crop for the past five days and concern is growing about late quality damage in the European Union's second largest wheat producer. "Concern about late quality damage to wheat in parts of the country is increasing and it looks like we will have a wide range of harvest quality results this year," one analyst said. "But it is still too early for pessimism and there could still be a recovery if the weather improves."
Wheat in much of Germany is now ripe but rain has repeatedly interrupted work and little progress has been made since Thursday, analysts said. The southern state of Bavaria and the major grain belts in east Germany still have large areas to be cropped despite some wheat plants being ready for almost two weeks.
"The picture in western Germany is better and more progress is being made," another analyst said. "The overall picture nationally is still unclear as the rain has come so late in the season." "Overall people are expecting some late quality damage but it is too early to press the alarm button as concrete evidence of damage is still lacking. Dryer weather could still mean a reasonable harvest is brought in."
A smaller German harvest is anyway expected as a springtime drought damaged plants. Germany's 2011 wheat harvest of all types is forecast to fall 4.0 percent on the year to 22.82 million tonnes from 24.05 million tonnes last year, farm co-operatives forecast. "Weed growth in wheat fields is becoming an increasing problem," one German trader said. "A long period of dry weather is now urgently needed." German weather is forecast to be better this week but still not completely dry. East Germany again had rain on Monday but the rest of the country was dryer.
Germany is forecast to be dry and sunny on Tuesday. But showers are forecast for Wednesday to Friday. "Constant rain would be the real danger and is not forecast," another trader said. "If the showers are isolated and we get the expected sunshine in between, we could still escape with a black eye rather than a serious problem."